Dubuque has a $750,000 opportunity with the Wisconsin-based Jeffris Family Foundation to revive a centerpiece of its park system. The foundation selected Dubuque for one of its Capital Campaign Challenge Grants, the city announced on Tuesday.
The grant would restore structures in Eagle Point Park, which encompasses 164 acres of varied bluff terrain above the Mississippi River, north of the city’s downtown.
Rob McDonald grew up in Dubuque and described Eagle Point as the “king” of the city’s park system.
“It's expansive, it's got a view of three states,” he said. “The mighty Mississippi is right there. It's really a unique park. When I was a kid, it was pristine. It was manicured. The city had flowers up there from a greenhouse. It was a big deal.”
During the recession that followed the 2008 financial crisis, maintenance at the park declined.
“It quit getting attention, and it just went into a slide,” McDonald said.
Reacting to the “decay,” McDonald started posting videos of maintenance issues on Facebook. Dozens of Dubuque residents began showing up at city meetings to request improvements at the park, which until recently was maintained by a single staff person.
Eagle Point was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2017, largely due to the elaborate designs of Alfred Caldwell, who became Dubuque’s park superintendent in 1933. Caldwell redesigned the site, directing over a hundred workers hired through the New Deal-era Works Progress Administration.
“It was a prairie style design, that was kind of late in the prairie style, but it is an exquisite design, and it was really at the beginning and an important part of his career,” said Assistant City Planner Chris Happ Olson, who worked on the grant application.
Caldwell went on to a storied career in Chicago and remains recognized for his contributions to prairie style landscape design.
His work at Eagle Point Park includes three limestone pavilions, which emerge from the hilly terrain. The grant will focus on preserving the structures.
Over two years of planning and outreach went into the application, Happ Olson said, and the project is just beginning. It requires a 2-to-1 match, meaning Dubuque must raise $1.5 million in additional funding to secure it. The city has three years to complete the fundraising, followed by two years to complete the restoration.
An outside consultant will lead the fundraising. The city is also working to elevate the park’s National Register listing from local to national significance, which could help attract federal grant money, Happ Olson said.
Parks and Recreation Director Matt Kalcevich said receiving the grant would provide much needed fixes to the park
“[It] would be a seismic contribution to the improvements that are needed to the structures,” Kalcevich said.
The city council has already approved nearly $1 million for other maintenance and improvement projects at Eagle Point, including tennis court renovations, additional staff and tree trimming work.
Kalcevich said securing money for such projects can be “challenging,” especially as recent legislation reduced the ability of cities to capture revenue.
But Happ Olson was optimistic about the park's future.
“We’re excited to be able to go to the community and to national organizations and the state for funding sources and to restore these structures that are so important.” she said.
